


Voodoo Doll

by CharismaticEnticer



Category: Die Anstalt
Genre: (read: author experienced phantom pain), Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Depression, Mental Health Issues, Needles, POV Third Person Limited, Paint therapy is useful for once, Present Tense, Sad, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Spoilers, Vulnerability, reader may experience phantom pain, self-harm justification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 13:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharismaticEnticer/pseuds/CharismaticEnticer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dub’s obviously not fine, but the therapist is only now finding out to what degree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voodoo Doll

**Author's Note:**

> I warn you once again: if you have self harmed in your life, particularly in the manner described _in detail_ within the fic, you may experience phantom pain and flashbacks during reading. Continue at your own risk.
> 
> Originally written and published on November 12th 2012.
> 
> Die Anstalt © Martin Kittsteiner.

_It’s nighttime. Everyone else is asleep, as far as he knows. The only sign of movement is his own._

_It’s too dark to see anything at all, much less himself and what he’s doing. It embraces him in benefit._  
 _If he can’t see what he’s doing, nor can anyone else. He doesn’t need anyone to stop him._  
 _And he can feel it less if he can’t see it, so it’s good that way too. He doesn’t want to feel it anywhere._

_He has had enough of feeling._

***

Daytime, roughly 1pm, third session of the shift.

The therapist first notices that something is wrong (more so than usual when it comes to this patient) when Dub finally manages to lift his hands up to grab the painting utensils.  
Hand.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” she inquires in her best English.

“Hm?”  
“Your right arm. You haven’t moved it from your side since we started.”

He frowns, and his grip tightens on the pallette and brush. “Nothing. I just slept on it. It’s stiff. I’m fine.”

He doesn’t sound fine. Flat, maybe; monotone, close to it; fine, not by any stretch of the imagination. After last week’s unfortunately drastic measure, he has no reason to be. But arms falling asleep isn’t uncommon, particularly for Dub, so she says nothing against it.

Her suspicion wanes as he places the plastic colours off to the side; it waxes when he uses the same arm to try in vain to pull the canvas closer. She has to prop it up for him, and when he goes to make a start is when it rears back full force.

“Dub, you’re right-handed, _ja_?”  
He nods.  
“Then why are you painting with your left hand?”

“Other one’s stiff,” he repeats lifelessly, with an air of not wanting to fight.

“So you’ve said. But if you move it around, it shouldn’t be anymore.”

“I…” His pupils shrink briefly, a sign of hope and fear; is he worried about something?  
No, he settles. “It’s a test. Yeah. I want to be what’d she call it ambidextrous like Dolly. It’ll make me better. At stuff.”  
She tentatively lets it go again, if only to stop him from getting upset.

The turtle attempts to paint a self-portrait, his counterpart fading and unravelling into empty air, but it comes out wobbly through the wrong hand. He splotches it more than once, mixing outline and colour, gold and brown bleeding together.  
The therapist keeps a close eye on the frozen arm, pondering ways of getting him to move it. Partial catatonia is the last thing he needs right now.

It takes five minutes for him to forget himself. He sits back and looks like he’s done, so she throws caution to the wind and lets go of the canvas. His hand, the right one, grabs it before it can fall on him.

She notices something running up the exposed bit. A thread, undone. Alarm bells jangle in her mind.

“What’s that on your arm?” she asks, trying to sound calmer than she is.  
“What’s what?” He looks down, realizes his mistake, pushes the canvas away with panic-wide eyes and covers it up again, close to his chest. “Nothing.”

“You’ve been on edge since you got here, Dub. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” he shouts, animated at last. “There’s nothing on my arm, I’m **fine!** ”

“Then why are you trying to hide it?”

“I- because it’s - I’m not… It’s stiff, that’s all!”

“Is that really all? Is there something else?”

“No - yes - I - “  
His voice breaks up, and the show of resistance collapses in on itself.

“I, I can’t show you,” he starts again. “My arm, I mean. You don’t want to see the problem.”  
“Why not? What do you think I’ll do?”  
“You’ll get mad and call me pathetic and weak. I’m not s’posed to be weak.”

“Dub,” she says soothingly, “you’re not weak. Having a problem isn’t weak, it’s part of why you’re here. Whatever that problem is, I can help you with it, if you’ll let me. Please?”

He pauses, takes a visible gulp.  
“…Promise you won’t call me—”  
“I promise.”

Tentatively, he turns his arm over so that she can see his wrist.

She takes in the sight of it for a good long half-minute, not bothering to analyze.  
“ _Beunruhigend_ … Okay. Thank you, Dub,” she manages. “That’s helpful.”

He pulls it back and wraps himself around his legs. “Told you it’s pathetic,” he says, staring mournfully at the cloth beneath him.  
“No, no it’s not! It’s distressing, yes, but that’s just because I don’t know why, Dub.” Well, she can guess, but she needs to hear it from him. “Why did you do that?”

Dub rubs the outside of the stiff sore arm, gently, while he thinks of an answer. And when he does say something again, it runs deep with bitterness, warning and loss.

“…It hurts less when I put it on there, than how it does in my head.”

***

_It’s the night before again as he says this. The only sign of movement is his own, weapon in his left hand in the dark._

_Before he can fully stop himself, he jabs it downward, into the bare skin on his arm. In it goes, through the other side, and out again. It’s thin and long and it can cause damage._  
 _It’s better that way._  
 _Through five times. Out five times. Across five times, dragging through itself, five scratches, spaced out, the highest one especially deep. It catches a thread._

_He’s not hurting himself, he justifies at the time (or is it now, when he remembers it?). He’s fulfilling his new purpose._  
 _This is what Dub is now. Not a high performance turtle. That’s gone away, most likely forever._  
 _Just a patchwork mess, a voodoo doll, in the true sense, creating holes for the thick black fog in his head to seep out of._

_It doesn’t hurt. It’s done that for a week, clashing in the mind, and now it doesn’t. He’s gone all numb. Good._

_He has had enough of feeling._  
 **_He has had enough of hurting._ **

***

That evening, between the end of the sessions for the day and the toys being called to bed, the therapist goes into Dub’s room to remove all the potential risks, the sharp items that could have caused this. The only thing she finds to that effect in there is, much to her startling concern, an open box of sewing needles hidden under his bed, snuck out from the first aid kit in the bathroom.


End file.
